IN HER BOOK Shattered City, JANET KITZ RAISES QUESTIONS ABOUT the accuracy of the figure for the number of dead provided by the Halifax Relief Commission. In her preface (p. xv), she states:
I am frequently asked how many people died in the explosion, but I am reluctant to give a definite answer. I have come across so many different figures, for example, 1,635 or 1,963. The names and addresses of most of the labels in the mortuary bags did appear on the list of the dead in the 1918 city directory, the most comprehensive list I have found. It is not, however, complete. No list I have ever seen has included all the people I know to have died. I believe the figure was higher than 2,000. The death rate over the following years, even during 1918, from explosion-related illnesses and injuries, for instance, was never taken into account.
Kitz does not mention any of the missing names. However, in her chapter in Ground Zero, she refers to two sailors, Matteo Ciccone from Picton and John Hurley from Calonne. At first glance, both would appear to be missing from the official records. In fact, both names were there, though neither was spelled correctly. John Hurley, for example, was shown as Matthew Husley.
In his book, The Town That Died, Michael J. Bird has a much stronger criticism of official records. He says that the Halifax Relief Commission’s figure of 1963 dead from the explosion is “wildly inaccurate.” He says the commission failed to take into account “the fatalities on board ships or the hundreds of citizens who disappeared without a trace.” In fact, the records do show people who were killed on board ships and people whose bodies were not recovered from the harbour.
In an effort to determine an accurate figure, I collected the name of every person listed as dead, whether that name appeared in a weekly newspaper, in military records, in books, in the Halifax dailies, or in the remaining records of the morgue. That produced 1950 names, only thirteen off the number provided by the commission. Then an attempt was made to determine if there was any systematic reason for the difference. On 4 and 5 December, the two days prior to the explosion, Curaca and Calonne each hired additional men to handle the horses they were taking from Halifax to Europe. Many were on deck when Mont-Blanc exploded and seventeen of the twenty-four (nine on Calonne and eight on Curaca) were killed in the explosion. Their names were located on the original crew lists, now at the Maritime History Archive, Memorial University of Newfoundland. Only three of the seventeen show up on the official list compiled by the morgue. Since some morgue records are damaged and others were destroyed, it is possible that the missing names are in the section of the records that have been lost, or perhaps the names are misspelled. However, other sailors from Curaca and Calonne do show up in the lists compiled by the morgue. This would suggest that about ten or so names are missing, bringing the total to 1960, remarkably close to the estimate of the commission.
Mary Ann Monnon, in Miracles and Mysteries: The Halifax Explosion December 6, 1917, lists the names of 55 railway workers killed in the explosion. Because a portion of the morgue records have been lost, one would expect to find between 60 and 75 per cent of those names in the surviving records—between 33 and 41 names. In fact, 42 of them appear. (Thirty-five of the names appear as she spells them. Seven others appear with slight variations. She has Frederick Elliott, the morgue Ed Elliott; she has Joseph Langwill, the morgue Joseph Langwith; she has Victor Goomes, the morgue Victor Gomes; and she has Bartholemew McTiernan, the morgue Bartley McTiernan.) A check of children missing and presumed dead yielded similar though slightly less impressive results. There were 30 children whose names were known and were still missing in mid-January. Between 18 and 22 should be on the list. In fact, there are 17. On the whole, it would appear that names of dead I discovered were in fact on the official list of dead.
What about Bird’s other contention that hundreds of citizens disappeared without a trace? This seems unlikely. The Canadian army lost records for one unit at Wellington Barracks that was hit hard, No. 6 Special Company, CEF. It also lost track of soldiers who were taken on board Old Colony and then shipped to the emergency hospital in New Glasgow. All but one of these soldiers were eventually listed as dead or, in one case, as a deserter. As for people who just plain disappeared, there is little evidence of that. There is a fair amount of correspondence still extant from people trying to locate lost relatives. In most cases, the persons being sought were located. From the information provided in those letters, it seems unlikely the rest were in Halifax. Not only that, the morgue did identify persons who were in Halifax that day, such as a couple from Truro who stayed over to shop after a visit to the hospital, and a businessman from Truro who came in on the morning train.
There is, of course, another question. What is an explosion-related death? Obviously, it includes those who died immediately. Presumably, it also includes those who died on the way to hospital, those who died without receiving medical treatment, and those who died despite such treatment, such as three-year-old Henrietta Smith and four-year-old Laurie Clancey, both of whom died on the Boston Express on the way to Truro. In addition, it seems reasonable to include those who died in hospital as a result of their injuries. What about the babies who died prematurely? What about people like the pharmacist at the Victoria General, Charles Puttner? Though he was not injured in the explosion and died some months later, he was clearly a victim of what happened. The morgue list does not include two children who died when born prematurely. The morgue committee said its list included “all those who died since that time as a result of the explosion, as well as those who suffered immediate death on that day.” It specifically included in that number 254 who were not identified and 451 who were listed as missing. The report is not dated, though presumably it was written after the unidentified dead were buried.
Even without these problems, it is difficult to get a precise answer as to how many died. That is because there were so many errors in the official records that it is hard to determine whether a name that shows up somewhere else is, in fact, on the list. It is easy enough to assume that William Stratton and James William Stratton are the same person or that John Hurley is Maurice Husley, since both are from Curaca and there is no other similar name on the crew list. It is much more difficult to decide if Vincent Dwyer is James Dwyer. Based on the information collected for this book, however, it is reasonable to suggest that the figure of 1963 is reasonably accurate and that, at the most, it leaves out fifteen to twenty crew from Curaca. The actual death toll was, therefore, probably slightly less than 2000, very close to the figure provided by the commission.
The relief commission also provided a figure for the number injured—9000. That is a guess. Only two hospitals—Camp Hill and the Children’s Hospital—counted their patients on the night of the explosion, and their figures include only those present when the count was made—not those, like Thomas Raddall’s mother, who were bandaged and sent home. Even if we accept the very rough estimate that 3500 people were treated in hospital, in places like Old Colony, or the emergency hospitals in Truro, that leaves no indication of the numbers treated at doctor’s homes or in makeshift shelters such as St. Paul’s Hall. It also does not account for those who never went for treatment, people like Audley Griffin, whose mother used silk thread to sew back the little finger of his left hand. Nor does it include the sailors on the various ships who were treated by their own surgeons or simply given first aid. Perhaps the best thing that can be said for the figure of 9000 is that it is large enough to give a sense of the enormity of the problem—nine times as many injured as there were hospital beds.
There was a figure for eye injuries. On 10 January, the Acadian Recorder quoted Sir Frederick Fraser as saying 1000 men, women, and children had eye injuries. Of these, he said 400 were minor injuries that did not affect sight, 400 involved loss of lost sight in one eye, 200 loss of sight in both eyes or sight so far impaired that they would be virtually blind for life.